written by Cleon Teunissen

The Ejs Great Circles model displays the frictionless motion of a particle that is constrained to follow the surface of a perfect sphere.  The sphere rotates underneath the particle, but since there is no friction, and the sphere is perfectly spherical, the motion of the particle is not influenced by the sphere.  The simulation shows simultaneously the trajectory with respect to the inertial coordinate system, and the trajectory as seen from a point of view that is co-rotating with the sphere.  The particle remains co-rotating until the Release/Launch button is pressed. On pressing the Release/Launch button the particle commences to move along the great circle that is tangent to the initial latitude.  You can modify this simulation if you have Ejs installed by right-clicking within the plot and selecting "Open Ejs Model" from the pop-up menu item.  

Ejs Great Circles model was created using the Easy Java Simulations (Ejs) modeling tool.  It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive.  Double clicking the ejs_nl_teunissen_GreatCircles.jar file will run the program if Java is installed.  Ejs is a part of the Open Source Physics Project and is designed to make it easier to access, modify, and generate computer models.  Additional Ejs models for classical mechanics are available.  They can be found by searching ComPADRE for Open Source Physics, OSP, or Ejs, or by visiting the author's web site: http://www.cleonis.nl/index.htm.

• Download ejs_nl_teunissen_great_circles.jar - 1624kb Java Archive File

Last Modified June 6, 2014

This file has previous versions.

The source code zip archive contains an XML representation of the Great Circles Model. Unzip this archive in your Ejs workspace to compile and run this model using Ejs.

• Download ejs_nl_theunissen_great_circles.zip - 30kb Compressed File

Published January 19, 2009
Last Modified November 3, 2009

This file has previous versions.